Monday, 7 April 2014

Please Turn Off the Music

At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy instead of a refined ex-disco queen, I think it's time to Turn Off the Music.

I mean, take today. I turn up at the pool for a quick lunchtime swim. Nothing too punishing, just forty minutes of lap time in between everything else. Are you with me? Picture Catherine in her nun's training swimmers. Yes I went to a convent high school and like everyone else did years of swimming carnivals and laps in the pool and my swimming attire has never been very hip. In fact, if Proust's first sophisticated and very chic first memory is of 'une madeleine', well, mine is of chlorine up the back of my nose.

You see, it's so very different when you go to the pool in Italy. Especially for the guys. I mean, where in Sydney I've seen blokes hop out of their cars shirtless, shoeless, and lumber down to the North Sydney Pool as though they have just rolled out of bed, in Vicenza once I swear I saw a well-trained hippo in Matching Yellow Bathing Cap and Matching Yellow Teeny Swimmers - every lap completed with a self-satisfied preening as all the old ladies rocked in his wake.

Let us rewind. I'm in my daggy cozzie, needing a wax (next week!) starting to pick up speed, and I see a guy in flippers, fancy goggles, very sleek cap, odious goatie and a set of freakin' ear plugs for music! Hello? And oh gawd he thinks I'm checking him out. And then - I looked over a few lanes - and there was another set of ear phones on another guy's head! Excuse me?

Whatever happened to the sound of water thrumming past your ears, or soft splashing as you cut your hand in the water for backstroke, or listening to your own lungs emptying as your freestyle carves along? Why would you want to miss out on that?

It's something I don't understand, having music broadcast directly into your brain. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE loud music when I drive (though not always, I do like to think) and I spent years under speakers ten times the size of me at concerts when I was young and less deaf, and I do love to dance and party and be surrounded even pummelled by sound. But I feel a little put-off when I see so many people (my offspring included) who are being drip-fed a soundtrack, whose lives are cool movies with not much of a plot.

Whatever happened to daydreaming? Looking out of a train window at the skyline? Catching the tail of an idea unexpectedly? Or the delight of listening in on somebody's conversation?

Have a look about. Isn't it astounding? People sitting on trains and buses are more remote than ever before, each on planet MusicBuzz. Or you hear a wanker yelling into his or her phone for half an hour. That's no fun. Even on the ski slopes I am amazed to see how many people are plugged into sound, with the unplugged sounds of the landscape - and the universe - ignored. How will we ever plumb our secret thoughts and notions or begin to compose our lives if we are always plugged into sound? How will the eddies of our mysterious subconscious ever spill into our thoughts as a shivering surprise?

I seriously wonder if this generation - old and young alike - are stepping away from the Self. If we are becoming more and more of a collective instead of a society of independent lively minds. Think of how many people - young 'uns especially - who have now spent years without ever listening to the dialogue that all of us have within our many selves. Weighing up the day, uncovering our deepest thoughts. How can this happen between Track One and Track Nineteen or a little Random?

So true Catherine, you capture the idea so well. The first time I came across it, I thought he was using his nose squeezer in his ears...then when he powered down with flippers and handmats I knew I had to change lanes. Maybe he needed the music as he doesn't have any thoughts?!

Hear Hear Catherine. I am so on the same page with this one. I find it unsociable, rude, and sad. Sad, that these folks are missing out on so much. I love music. Music is important in my life but when I am out at the gym, in the pool, at the shops, wherever, I want to enjoy those surroundings. Lyn

Oh Catherine, I've missed your entertaining rants that leave me shaking my head and silently whispering under my breath, "Yes!"You my dear have nailed it. I couldn't agree more about this crazy need to always be plugged into a stream of sound. I feel sad about the death of quiet day dreaming. And I also wonder about the connection to one's deeper self when there is always something in your ear, standing in the way of contemplative silence. Great post and hilarious images of the swimming pool!

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LOVE ON THE ROAD ANTHOLOGY 2015

Read Catherine's shortlisted story 'Enfolded' in this new Irish anthology

Labello Press Plays Twenty Questions with Catherine McNamara

Catherine's story 'Magaly Park' won a Ruby Award and a prestigious Pushcart Prize nomination in 2014. The story was a shortlisted finalist in the Labello Press International Short Story Competition. Read her interview here.

Short Story News!

Catherine's story 'Return to Salt Pond' was published in the Stockholm University review Two Thirds North

Catherine's kinky story 'Three Days in Hong Kong' will be appearing in 'Fugue', an anthology by The Siren Publishing, in spring 2015

Catherine's story 'The Wild Beasts of the Earth Will Adore Him' was shortlisted in the inaugural Hilary Mantel/Kingston University Short Story Competition 2014 and will be appearing in this year's anthology

Catherine's story 'Enfolded' was a shortlisted finalist in the LOTR Short Story Competition and appears in Love on the Road 2015 Anthology, published by Irish independent Liberties PressCatherine's story 'Adieu, Mon Doux Rivage' was a shortlisted finalist in the Short Fiction International Competition and appears in SF8 2014Catherine's story 'Magaly Park' received a prestigious Pushcart nomination and a Ruby Award. The story was a shortlisted finalist in the Labello Press International Short Story Prize and appears in the Gem Street Anthology 2014Catherine's story 'The Sneeze' from her new collection won First Prize in February's Global Short Story CompetitionJudge Fiona Cooper said: 'The story takes us through the ambivalent and confusing surges of emotional reality that are brought on by enormous changes to one's life. It reads as a compelling stream of consciousness, with vivid snapshots along the way..'

DLC with BOOKSONTHEUNDERGROUND

Catherine McNamara Author

I write commercial and literary fiction, novels and short stories. My erotic comedy The Divorced Lady's Companion to Living in Italy was published on April 16th 2012 by Indigo Dreams Publishing UK. My book of short stories Pelt and Other Stories came out on 2nd September 2013. It was semi-finalist in the 2011 Hudson Prize USA.

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Review Comments

‘..Then I reread the last line of McNamara’s blurb:But sexy glamorous Milan is about as unfeeling as a Prada bag.Dang. That’s harsh. And anyone willing to write that sentence must have a sense of humor…’
Erica Firpo, journalist www.moscerina.com'..as soon as we saw the cover, combined with the intriguing title, we just knew we had to read it. This is definitely a cover composition that has Europe written all over it: the off-centre positioning of the woman's face, the heavy sunglasses, the gloved hand, gorgeously coiffed hair and the striking colour combination of pink and grey..'www.tripfiction.com

CATHERINE'S BOOK OF SHORT STORIES

Two foolhardy snowboarders challenge the savagery of mountain weather in the Dolomites. A Ghanaian woman strokes across a hotel pool in the tropics, flaunting her pregnant belly before her lover’s discarded wife. A sex-worker is enlisted to care for her Italian lover’s elderly parents. Hit by a car in Brussels, a young woman returns into the life of her doctor boyfriend...

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READ CATHERINE'S STORY 'NATHALIE' SELECTED BY BOOKANISTA.COM

AUTHOR EVENTS

*Catherine read her story 'Veronique in the Dark' at the Tears in the Fence Festival, a celebration of 30 years of independent publication, on Friday 26th October, 2014
*Catherine read from her shortlisted story 'Adieu, Mon Doux Rivage' at the launch of Short Fiction 8 at the Plymouth Book Festival on October 21st, 2014
*Catherine read her story 'Taxidermy' at the 13th International Festival of the Short Story in English, Vienna, July 2014
*Catherine attended the inaugural London Short Story Festival, June 21-23rd 2014

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About Me

CATHERINE MCNAMARA grew up in Sydney and moved to Paris to study French, and ended up in Ghana running a bar. She moved to Italy eight years ago, where she complains about the government, translates for a WWI Eco-museum and skis fanatically. She has great collections of African sculpture and Italian heels.